


The Lesson of the Coin

by Ithika



Series: Remorseless [11]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Gen, Pirates struggling with feelings, Ship words, The Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 05:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12952323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithika/pseuds/Ithika
Summary: Sixteen days’ sail north-north east of Nassau town, 1707, on the pirate square-rigger Ranger, a younger Captain Vane puzzles on the peculiar behaviour of his quartermaster, one John Rackham. One-shot, complete.





	The Lesson of the Coin

The coin rolled rhythmically across thick, scarred fingers, the tarnished shine of well-worn silver catching dully in the lamplight of the cabin. Everywhere there is the creak of timbers: the ship about him breathed and moaned with the waves, the _Ranger’s_ wooden bones singing the same song they’d sung as long as the captain could remember. Even his desk creaked, the weight of heavy boots shifting as he balanced, reclined as he was on the back two legs of the ornate ebony chair he’d lifted from some prize or other, long ago. 

Water slaps rhythmically against the hull with the heave and yaw of the vessel, and as sunlight streams through salt-crusted leadlight astern, so too can the occasional snatch of men’s voices carried abaft on the wind, or the high steady piping of the bosun’s call. 

The man in the chair hears none of it, however, pale blue eyes fixed on the dull gleam of the old piece of eight skipping across his fingers as if possessed of a will its own. The coin had walked this path across his fingers more times than any man could count, for it was one of a precious few items the captain habitually kept.

He hadn’t meant it to hold any significance, that coin, but it had woven itself into his memories, and now when he looked at it, it made it easier to think. Two moments in time, like the two faces of the coin.

It had been part of his take from his very first prize. His very first trip over the side of the gunwale, teeth grit, white-knuckled fists clenching his swords, screaming along with the rest of the men - he joined them that day. It wasn’t the first blood he’d spilt, but this was different. Different in ways that Charles had never bothered putting into words - it just was. Teach or Jack, well, they’d find some way to turn the thing into a tale, without doubt. Something about purpose, intent; the lives he’d taken before then had been as an animal takes life to survive, but that day was the first time he found himself in the thick of a fight by his own design. The way Vane saw it, the words didn’t add the nobility they thought it did.

He’d killed men before, and he killed men that day. This time was different, the start of something, and that was what mattered.

Teach had flipped this very coin to him that evening before they began to work with the charts. “For courage,” he’d said, and he’d worn the most peculiar expression- one the young Vane had never seen before. It had puzzled him, at the time, that smile, the clap on the shoulder that somehow warmed him from tip to toes. Pride, it was - Teach had been  _ proud _ of him, that evening just shy of a month after Charles had joined the crew. Not long after that, the man- though in all eyes but his, he was a boy yet- had been convinced he would follow Teach to the grave if need called for it.

The coin catches the light as calloused fingers grip it, nails and fingertips rimmed with traces of rigger’s black, powder scars, perhaps dried blood. It was the _other_ reason he kept this coin that bothered him now.

 

Because he’d betrayed Teach, in the end. Driven him from Nassau in shame, after all he’d done for him. All he’d  _ meant _ to him, and Charles had done it anyway. That it had been a hard decision for the younger pirate was irrelevant then, and it was irrelevant now. He'd done it. He places the coin carefully on the leather writing surface of his desk, grabbing a bottle of some dark-stained liquor from the desk’s cabinetry. 

Green glass pauses at his lips as he glares at the coin in the cabin’s particular blend of lamplight and sunlight, fingers itching to pick it up again, as though he couldn’t bear to be idle for too long.

No matter what you owed a man, what he meant to you, how great the esteem you held them to. For the right reason…

He snatches the coin angrily from where it lay as he takes a long pull from the bottle, barely reacting as the burning rum hits his tongue. Now he paces, the coin squeezed tightly in his hand. The cabin was large, as ones on the ship go - he had the full width of the hull, larboard to starboard, to pace, and so he did.

 

Jack had been acting strangely. His quartermaster, Charles was certain, didn’t realise the captain had noticed. He was spending too much time in the galley, too much time in the orlop. The galley didn’t trouble him - plenty of the crew dipped into the rations more than they should, and by and large it harmed no one. They were prospering, thriving, their stores regularly stocked with as much food as it made sense for any crew to carry on a hunt. The men profited from their prosperity, and the captain certainly wasn’t going to dampen their moods by restricting the bits here and there that they all took. It evened out if they all did it, and they all did.

But the orlop. There was no reason to go below the second gun deck; the Ranger sailed with an empty hold, the better to bring plunder home. There was nothing down there but rats and rancid water, seeped through the ship’s hull over the course of a hundred voyages, the last dregs the crew never quite managed to pump clear.

No matter what scenarios he came up with, none of them augured well for Jack’s loyalty to him. It stung. Of all the men (and to his great surprise) he’d liked fast-talking, quick-witted Jack Rackham best for some time now. He wouldn’t say it, but of all his brothers among the crew, Jack seemed the most like what the real thing might be. He squeezes the coin in his fist hard enough for it to hurt before he grabs his lantern from its wall hook. He’d put getting to the bottom of this off for far too long. Jack wasn’t going to come to him.

 

So he would go to Jack.

 

\-----

 

It took him little time to descend the steep, sturdy stairs that lead down, and down, and down again, till he was stooping under the ribs that supported the deck above, lantern held before him in the darkness. 

It was quieter here. The ship still groaned and creaked about him, but gone were the muffled sounds of men and sail, so too was the slapping of water against the hull outside. Here was just the damp, cool, dark, soft silence of the belly of the ship. In the dim light, the sequence of foothook risers leading forward to the bow looked like nothing so much as the ribs of some great beast, as though he were in the belly of a whale. 

His lips are set into a grim line as he walks purposefully forward, toward where he’d heard a voice cut off as he’d appeared, far afore as the keel curved upward and into the bow, where the space was small and tighter still. It had been Jack’s voice, he was certain, and his heart sinks even as his left hand moves to the hilt of his sword, fingers twisting around the well-worn leather as his right raises the lantern higher.

Who was he talking to? It seemed absurd that Jack would plan a mutiny against him, less so down  _ here _ , but he could think of no other alternative. Distantly, he’s surprised by how much the thought wounds him. He does his best to push the unpleasant thought aside, to ignore it in favour of listening for dangers lurking in the dark. 

He stops a handful of paces from where his tall frie-- quartermaster stooped even more badly than Vane had to, lanky form folded awkwardly in the tight space. “Captain--”

Long-suffering teeth grind hard against one another as he watches Rackham, his grip on his sword painfully tight. “What are you doing down here, Jack?” His deep, tobacco-dried voice is almost swallowed whole in the stubborn silence of the orlop, as if the ship herself enforced the quiet of this place. 

Before he can answer, though, there is movement from even further aforeships, behind Jack, and Charles leans toward it, his eyes straining in the dark even as his sword comes forward, ready. 

 

When he steps into the light, Charles can only stare, his eyes flicking from Jack to the stranger. For he wasn’t a  _ he _ at all, and very clearly so - long red hair framed a narrow, dour face almost concealed by the wide brim of an ancient hat.

“I realise that this isn’t--” Jack begins, but Vane raises a hand to stop him, stepping closer to the two. 

“ _This_ is what you’ve been hiding. A _stowaway_?” 

“I would only ask that you refrain--”

The hand raises to stem the flow of words again, his sword now left to hang in its scabbard. He doubts that Jack can make out the way his lips twitch at the corner. He hadn’t thought of this- his mind had gone to darker places. A stowaway, in normal circumstances, was a grave discovery. And for a crewman - the quartermaster, no less- to hide one from the ship's captain graver still, but he can't find it within himself to care.  _No mutiny. Just this half-wild girl._

“You know the penalty for stowing, I assume.” This time he addresses the waif, eyes fixed on hers. 

“Tch. I’d not have had to stow if you’d had the balls to take a woman on your crew.” He can practically  _ hear  _ Jack tense beside her.

 

He watches her eyes - there’s a lot that’s familiar there, and it isn’t just the cold blue of them. “You didn’t ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you have thoughts or questions, I'd love to hear them. :) This was a quick one-shot written on a whim at 1am on a Friday-Saturday night, and even now I have questions for myself, but be that as it may, I enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it!


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